Gail Godwin

Studies


Book-length Studies of Gail Godwin's Novels

The Evolving SelfThe Evolving Self in the Novels of Gail Godwin
by Lihong Xie 

Published by Louisiana State University Press
1995

Gail Godwin

Gail Godwin
by Jane Hill

Twayne's United States Authors Series
Published by Twayne, New York, 1992

Moving On: The Heroines of Shirley Ann Grau, Anne Tyler, and Gail Godwin
by Susan S. Kissel
Published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1996
Escaping the Castle of Patriarchy: Patterns of Development in the Novels of Gail Godwin
by Kerstin Westerlund
Published by Uppsala, 1990
Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, Sweden

Biographical and Critical  Studies about Gail Godwin
(a selection by the author)


"Gail Godwin's Contributions to Literature" by Rob Neufeld

"Gail Godwin," Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004.
born June 18, 1937, Birmingham, Ala., U.S.
in full Gail Kathleen Godwin

American author of fiction about personal freedom in man-woman relationships and the choices women make. 

In childhood Godwin lived with her divorced mother, a writer and college literature teacher who was the model for some of Godwin's strong female characters. Godwin studied at Peace Junior College, the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1959), and the University of Iowa (M.A., 1968; Ph.D., 1971). She wrote about women smothered by marriage in the violent novel The Perfectionists (1970) and Glass People (1972), which features a wife prevented from ever making decisions.

The protagonist of Godwin's widely admired The Odd Woman (1974) is a college teacher who attempts to come to terms with her family and her married lover. The three principal characters of A Mother and Two Daughters (1982) are personally close yet grow in separate ways to self-fulfillment. Godwin also wrote Violet Clay (1978), The Finishing School (1985), A Southern Family (1987), Father Melancholy's Daughter (1991), and The Good Husband (1994). In Evensong (1999), a sequel to Father Melancholy's Daughter, Godwin examines family ties and religious faith.

Citations:
MLA style:
"Gail Godwin." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 30 Mar. 2004 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=98883

APA style:
Gail Godwin. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 30, 2004, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=98883 

Britannica style:
"Gail Godwin" Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=98883 [Accessed March 30, 2004].

"Gail Godwin," Who's Who in America, 2004.

Weeks, Carl Solana.  "Gail Godwin (18 June 1937-)" 105-9 in American Novelists Since World War II, Second Series, ed. James E. Kibler, Jr., Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol.6.  Detroit: Gale Research, 1980.

"Gail Godwin, 1937-" Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. 69 [focuses primarily on the novels The Finishing School, A Southern Family, and Father Melancholy's Daughter; see CLC, Vols. 5,8, 22, and 31, for discussion of earlier novels.]

"Gail Godwin," Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Vol. 43 [profile of the author and discussion of her works through 1991.]

"Gail Godwin," Current Biography, October 1995 [an interestingly written bio and overall survey of the author, which covers her work through 1994.]

"Gail Godwin," by Jane Hill, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 234. [a  recent thoughtful assessment of Godwin's collected short fiction], 2000.


Studies of Gail Godwin's novels

"Pas de D(i)eux: Duplicitious Synthesis in Gail Godwin's Father Melancholy's Daughter, by Kerstin Westerlund-Shands, The Southern Quarterly, Spring 1993.

"Fore-telling, Fore-told: Storytelling in Gail Godwin's The Good Husband, by Kerstin Westerlund-Shands, The Southern Quarterly, Winter, 1997.

"For Better For Worse: Attractive Nuisances and Unifying Tension in Gail Godwin's Evensong, by Kerstin Westerlund-Shands, North Carolina Literary Review, October 2000.